What Bob Dylan Can Teach You About Content Marketing

“[Bob] Dylan said to me at one point that he, you know, he couldn’t write anymore, and I said, “Oh, what about this and what about that?” And he said, “Oh, the box wrote it.” I said, “What do you mean ‘the box’?” He said, “I write down things from movies and things I’ve heard people say and I throw them in the box.” I said, “I don’t care where you got your bits and pieces; you still put them all together.” | Joni Mitchell

Every day, I talk with someone about focusing on their content marketing program. To which, the reply is almost always “I just cannot come up with enough ideas to write about.”

It is this fear that holds most people back. And you are selling yourself short. Every one of you.

But thinking about Dylan above, who we recognize as one of the greatest songwriters, now you know how he does it. He jots down things he sees, hears, observes. He just pays attention to the world around him. And ideas flow.

And that’s all you have to do in your world too. And yeah, neither of us are writing about Sixties cultural revolution, but even in our sales and marketing worlds, there are amazing things happening: new innovations, new ideas, great failures, and great successes — all things we can write about and provide commentary on.

…commentary that matters to your buying audience.

So, creating content isn’t hard. You just have to listen to the world around you. Ideas will come.

Helpful tip: The best book to read on learning how to do this is Austin Kleon’sSteal Like An Artist:

In fact, how did I get the idea for this simple post? I was reviewing Austin’s Tumblr feed, saw the quote above, and that sparked an idea to write this post.